SEO URLs

By default addresses look like index.php?route=product/product&product_id=42. A SEO URL is a short readable address of the same page, for example /en-gb/ceramic-mug. It is easier to read for people and search engines. The page itself and its controller do not change — only the address.

Turning it on

Three steps are needed.

In the admin panel: System → Settings, edit the store, the Server tab, turn on «Use SEO URLs».
Teach the web server to pass unknown addresses to index.php.
Give keywords to products, categories and pages.

Web server rules

On Apache the rules are already in the distribution — rename the file in the site root:

mv .htaccess.txt .htaccess

On Nginx add the rules to the site configuration:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @opencart;
}
 
location @opencart {
    rewrite ^/(.+)$ /index.php?_route_=$1 last;
}

An address that is not a real file is handed to OpenCart in the _route_ parameter, and the engine finds the page by the keywords.

Keywords of products

Open a product in Catalog → Products, the SEO tab, and enter a keyword for each store and language: ceramic-mug. The same tab exists for categories, manufacturers and information pages.

Open the storefront — links to the product now lead to the short address, and the old address with product_id=42 still works.

Where keywords are stored

All keywords are in the table oc_seo_url. Each row links a keyword with a pair «key and value»:

`key`	`value`	`keyword`
`product_id`	`42`	`ceramic-mug`
`path`	`20`	`desktops`
`route`	`information/hello`	`hello`

The whole list is shown in Design → SEO URL.

A keyword for your own page

In Design → SEO URL add a row: the key route, the value — the route of your controller, for example information/hello, the keyword hello, your store and language.

The page opens at an address like http://shop.test/en-gb/hello. How exactly the parts of the address are assembled — with the language at the start or without it — depends on the release.

Links in code

Nothing changes in code. $this->url->link() returns the short address by itself when SEO URLs are on and a keyword exists:

$href = $this->url->link('product/product', 'language=' . $this->config->get('config_language') . '&product_id=42');

$href contains the short address of the product, and for a product without a keyword — the usual long one.

Common mistake

A link is written by hand in a template: <a href="index.php?route=product/product&product_id=42">. It works, but stays long, and search engines see two addresses of one page. Build every link in the controller with $this->url->link() and pass it to the template as a variable.

Thanks for reading!